Mischief
by Redlux
Summary: Stiles is kidnapped and tortured by a demon, but it doesn't want information. It's playing a different game.
1. I Will Not Follow

_Mischief! Mischief!_

It was a voice he thought he'd forgotten. He'd thought about that voice, distracting him mid-sentence from his essays, from the breakfast dishes after dad had left for work, from some joke Scott was making at his expense. In those moments he always asked himself how could he have forgotten something so important, so beautiful?

_Mischief!_

The beautiful voice was calling from the glow. How had he ended up in this room…or rather…space? Something must be on fire; there is a dull flickering redness in the air. But then, why was it so cold?

_Mischief! Mischief!_

What is he doing? Floating about, asking himself questions, ignoring the fact that he is being called. He tries to call back. He'll rasp if he has to. But something is blocking his throat. It's as if something fat and barbed is stuck there. All he feels is pain, a swelling redness all over his body.

_Mischief!_

He chokes again in an attempt to call back, but he can't stay silent, can't ignore her, so he screams the words in his head. He's surprised when the sound echoes through the dullness.

_Mum! Where are you?! I'm scared._

_I'm here, Mischief. I never left._

It is too real, the sound of the voice. He just cracks like an egg and the sobs pour out. He'll be hysterical soon.

_Mischief, I never left. I'm here. You're so brave. You've always been so brave, my little Mischief. _

He doesn't feel brave as he weeps. But his mum was always right.

_I don't feel brave, mum._

_Braver than Batman!_

His sobbing bubbles into a rueful, tear-filled laugh. _I'm Batman. Scott can be Robin._

_You're smart too, Mischief. Always getting into trouble._

He nods, weeping again. _Sure do. Caught up with me now, though._ He raises his head, looks for mum, but he cannot see anything. He wants to get up, find her, let her hold him. He wants to tell her he still has the jeep, that it broke down last week, but then he got it fixed. He wants to let her stroke his hair like she did when she could still talk, when she could still remember…

_Smart and brave, Mischief. You need to wake up. You need to be you._

Her voice is receding, becoming quieter, more distant. The panic shoots through him. _No, don't go! Don't leave me! Mum? Mum!_ He tries to find her. He's not sure there's such a thing as space anymore, but he tries to move through it, to follow her.

_No, mischief_. She is almost gone. _I follow you. I…follow…you._

He doesn't care. He'll catch up to her, wherever she goes. It's better to follow her than to go back. He can't go back.

_No!_

She's by his ear, close to his face, but he can't see her. She's screaming desperately.

_No, you can't follow! I follow you! I'll always follow you!_

Then he's pushed, and he didn't know that all this time he's been standing on some ledge, because as soon as he loses balance he's falling. Falling, and as he falls, the air sinks darker, colder. Then the ground—

#

—kicks him hard in the chest. There's cracking noises and he would scream if the air hadn't been forced from him. Some blood comes up the back of his throat, oozing, like he's a fucking ketchup bottle. He concentrates on trying to breath and ignore the stabbing agony that comes whenever he moves.

_In_.

_Out_.

There's noise, music even. It's crackling and jovial and playing from a gramophone on the other side of the basement. His eyes roll over and the room and the room rolls too. His sight pulls apart and squashes back together, like putty. It's rather like being drunk.

'Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me…my lover stands on golden sands…and watches the ships that go sailing…'

There's another voice. It doesn't sound beautiful. It's a voice he wished he could forget. He doesn't hear what it's saying, but it carries on. Then it whistles to the music.

Stiles tries to orientate himself. He's got the breathing nailed, mostly, but it's hard to remember, to _know_, where the hell he is and why he's here.

The sound of a knife being sharpened brings everything back.

Algernon is opening the fridge, bringing out an apple. The music has changed, but it's equally jolly and sickening. The demon is coming back and Stiles is crawling as best he can into a corner. The demon sits opposite him, crosses his legs and carving the apple with the knife…the same knife…

'Would you like a piece?' He asks, offering Stiles a slice. Stiles feels he's going to be sick. He's starving, but he won't take what's being offered. He wonders how something so evil can look so normal, so undisturbed. Algernon could have served him coffee at Starbucks, could've rented him a library book or given him a filling. When he watches the demon eating the slice of apple, it looks like a student in Beacon Hills High School cafeteria. He can't help counting the pieces of fruit and watch them disappear, one by one. There's a rising sense of dread and horror as their number dwindles, until at the last piece, Algernon brings out hand and Stiles flinches.

'Come on now, it's the last piece and I don't want you thinking I didn't offer to share.'

Stiles is shaking, his head is moving involuntarily, jarringly, from side to side. Algernon pops the last piece into his mouth.

'I'm sorry,' the demon says gently, gesticulating to the basement, the bars of what used to be a kennel, the dried pools of blood on the floor. 'I just don't know anything else. If I did,' he smiles, and it's a kind, warm smile, 'I'd leave you well alone.'

That night, Stiles screams to the tune of _La Vie en Rose_.

#

'You know what? I'm surprised nobody's come for you yet. Stiles, look.' Algernon pulls his face with the hand holding the bloody knife. The demon is on his haunches and in his other hand is a phone. Stile's phone. 'It's Saturday evening and you've been gone since Friday afternoon, but look: no missed calls and only two texts. I thought, you know, somebody would miss you.' Algernon changes suddenly and Stiles flinches again, tries to squeeze away even though there's nowhere to go. 'I'm sorry. That was very rude of me.' The ostensible sincerity terrifies him. 'If it makes you feel any better, I texted Scott saying you were working on that literature essay. You know, the one about Huckleberry Finn?' The demon makes a warm laugh and intones, 'of course, _he_ hasn't started it yet. And your dad,' he takes on an exaggerated authoritative voice, '_the sheriff_, thinks you're staying at Scott's, so you see, there's nothing to worry about.'

The trouble, Stiles is thinking, of waiting to be rescued is that he's too impatient.

It is his last coherent thought that evening.

#

The music has stopped, and Algernon is washing his bloody hands in the washbasin. Stiles has come to terms with death. It doesn't seem so bad now. Death is, he hopes, an inanimate state. Tables are inanimate. When you carve something into them, they can't howl with pain.

#

'Hey, Mr Stilinski, time for a ride.'

He's watching his feet drag against the floor. He's like a paintbrush, leaving a long streak of red across the basement floor. His head feels heavy, a bowling ball, dragging his neck this way and that.

He's being carried up a flight of stairs. He's not the lightest guy, Algernon must be stronger than he looks. Demons are quite strong though…

It would make him laugh, if he could wave goodbye to the gramophone, but it feels as if his arms are being pulled so he doesn't bother.

#

'Here we are. Sorry that it's ending, I feel we really bonded.'

Algernon's voice wakes him. He's in the passenger seat of a truck and it's still dark, but he can still make out the leaves and trunks. It could be anywhere outside Beacon Hills. When the door opens, he almost falls out, but the demon carries him carefully to the floor, lays him down amongst the autumnal debris and mud.

'Pay attention now, this bit's important.' He's on his haunches again, phone in hand. 'Remember what I told you, on Friday. I know you won't forget, I know you don't want to believe me, but I thought you should know; it's only fair. And remember, the choice is always yours.'

He's been cut all over his body. He's pretty sure he's missing some bits, that he's not entirely a whole person anymore. There's a stinging, mind-controlling agony that takes over all other thoughts when the skin is initially unzipped. Then after the cut's been made, that dull throbbing, biting, stinging: it isn't nearly so bad. The pain dims a little with adrenaline. It hurts now, but it will go away.

But those words, said to him now…the words, said to him before the whole nightmare started…they are a different kind of torture. The pain…it's not something he will ever be able to explain or come to terms with. It's worse than dropping an anvil through his stomach because it endures, because there is no hope of recovery. That feeling of pure despair.

Algernon's eyes widen and he drops Stile's phone. He takes deep breaths. Inhaling, feasting. Days of torture, but this will be the meal that sates him. When he's had his fill, he picks the phone back up, unlocks it with the code that cost Stiles a fingernail, and sweeps through it. 'Okay Snow White, time for your rescue. I hope you don't mind, but it's not Prince Charming on this occasion. Prince Charming can't always be relied upon. The _Sheriff_ however…' He puts the phone on speaker and drops it by Stiles' head. Its ringing as the truck engine rumbles. It keeps ringing, and God, what if he doesn't pick up? There isn't strength enough to move. He can't even…he just wants…sleep.

'Stiles? Stiles are you okay? It's four in the morning!'

Oh God, he loves that voice so much.

When he tries to reply, his words are drowned out by the truck. It goes up a gear, the wheels spin a little in the mud, then it's gone.

_Stiles._

_Stiles._

He must have fallen asleep, because he has a thing for hearing his parents when he's passed out. No…it's not his mother's voice…

'Stiles, son, you're scaring me, can you just answer me.'

'Da…'

'Stiles?! Are you okay? Where are you?'

'Help…me…follow…'

_No! I follow you Mischief! I will always follow you!_


	2. I Will Do Anything

'What is it, exactly, that you want to gain from this, Scott?' Deaton draws his fingers across the horned figure of his pendant. 'Because as I've already explained, you won't bring her back. It can't, and shouldn't, be done.'

'But I could speak to her? I could hear her voice again? One last time?'

'You think that would help you?' Deaton realises he's speaking too sternly. 'Scott...you're a mess. You look like you haven't slept this week, like you've been out every night. Take a bath, some candles and bubbles. Visit the park. Get some rest, read a book - a different book, one by Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. This book...this will only make you worse, and it's dangerous.'

There's a black-bound grimoire opened on the table between them, and it's turned to a page covered in runes and illustrations and line after line of handwritten text on how to summon the voices of the dead. Scott has noticed Deaton's wariness around it; he hasn't touched it once. 'Where did you even find it?'

'Online.' Deaton's eyebrows rise. 'You bought a written doorway to the voices of the dead...on Amazon?'

Scott manages to look sheepish. 'It was ten dollars cheaper and came with free delivery.'

'This isn't funny, Scott.'

He knows it. There was absolutely nothing funny since Allison died; everything funny had drained away, and there was nothing funny about lying. But he knows that if he told Deaton the truth, he might never see the book again, and his chance, his _only_ chance to speak to Allison again, to hear her voice, would be gone. Because, books like this shouldn't appear from nowhere. He shouldn't be able to stalk the woods, alone, trying to remember what Allison smelt like, and be caught off guard, abruptly, when that memory seemed suddenly real. He shouldn't have been able to run, to follow that smell, and that scent shouldn't have lead him to an unmarked point in the mud. He shouldn't be able to claw his way through two feet of Californian soil to find a book that smelt so much like...

'...Scott?'

'Yeah?'

'Let her go.'

His eyes are wet, dribbling down his cheeks. He can't let go. He's tried. 'I wan't to talk to her. I want to hear her voice again. I know...that this book will let me do that - I just need you to read it, to show me how to do it, or even do it with me if you want. You know what you're dealing with; you'll do it the safest way.' Deaton is quiet for a long time, then he exhales, as if he's been holding his breath all the while. 'Scott, I can't do it.' There's a plunging in his belly that wrings his eyes of more tears. 'If you need ingredients, herbs, talismans-'

'It's nothing to do with ingredients-'

'Anything, please-'

'Scott,' Deaton is leaning over the table and holding his shoulders, 'It doesn't need anything like that, it doesn't require any knowledge. You don't even need to read it, and that's just one of the many, many reasons you should forget about this book. I don't know where you got it from, and if you think I'll believe you got it off Amazon-'

'I did-'

'-then you must think I'm a fool. Look, you of all people should know by now that you can't mess around with things like this, especially in _Beacon_ Hills. Sure, there might be the slightest chance that you hear Allison again, that you get to say another goodbye and throw yourself through that misery all over again. You might say the slightest chance is worth it. But what if there's a chance you hurt someone? What if you tamper with something and it has repercussions? Are you willing to risk hurting a friend or stranger...for this? There is no "safe" way to use this book.'

Scott is nodding. He knows the truth when he hears it. That sinking pain still hurts, though. That crushing disappointment.

'Does anyone else know about this?' Deaton asks. Scott shakes his head. 'Not even Stiles?' Deaton presses. No, not even Stiles. _Especially_ Stiles. Losing Allison had been...for all of them it had been...hard. Harder than anything before. Stiles had been his rock, had been there at every terrible moment, and he'd had his own shit to deal with after the Nogitsune was neutralised. But he'd buried all his own struggles to keep Scott afloat. At times, Scott felt like an addict: Stiles would do everything he could to pull him from the abyss and it seemed to work for a while. Then he relapsed. He felt like he'd failed Stiles when that happened because it took even more energy to bring him back from the edge again. Every time, Stiles was there. He wouldn't burden Stiles with this. Wouldn't let his best friend realise how little progress Scott had actually made.

'You haven't told anyone because you know not a single person will tell you this is a good idea. I'm sorry if you put your hopes in me, Scott. Get some sleep. I'll keep it here in a circle of Mountain Ash where it can't be a danger to anyone. Forget about the book.'

After two weeks, he still hadn't forgotten the book, but he was at peace with it, more or less. He was less at peace with the mounds of work he'd been avoiding. Like a waterfall, it just kept coming, and his capacity to do it was like an eggcup: two months into the school year, the work was overflowing. Essays on the Battle of Gettysburg and Huckleberry Finn; numerous equations and factorials; an upcoming test on Noble Gases. Deadline after deadline, looming, dreading, passing. That cycle of fearing for the future, realising that it didn't matter anyway, then doubting because maybe it could matter, then fearing for the future again; all this time the stack grows larger, heavier on his desk. The eggcup's under water.

The best thing he could think of doing was sleeping, which was easy because after school he was always tired. Tired of the social interactions and the sheer energy it took to appear normal. He would meet up with Stiles tomorrow, because tomorrow was Saturday and Saturdays were reserved for driving - not to any particular place. Just a road and wilderness.

He's in the middle of class.

_So, you were saying San Francisco isn't where you grew up?_

_No, but we lived there for more than a year which is unusual, my family-_

A heartbeat, a pen. He's holding one. He's holding it, half-turned, to a face, a smile. It's taken from him, the pen.

_Thanks._

He smells the scent. He hears her voice. He wants to see her again, so much, God he wants-

He's startled from sleep. The room is not the same as it was when he closed his eyes. He can still smell Allison; it's no longer just a dream. He knows his desk is heavier, that it smells of her. It's not more work, adding to the weight of his desk - it's a black-bound grimoire. But it can't smell of Allison because...because she never owned it. She never mentioned it, it wasn't amongst her things after she was dead.

The scent is pulling him from the bed. He rises, tries to think better of it and can't. Just one chance. His _only_ chance, to speak to her again. It was worth anything. No-one had to know, no-one was here to stop him. He didn't need to read it, and he didn't need ingredients or talismans. Deaton had said as much himself, two weeks ago.

There's a heartbeat in the room. It's not his. It's getting faster and faster, pumping louder and louder, and with each beat, Allison was more alive.

His hand is on the binding and his claws scratch at the leathery surface, retracting whenever he musters some self-control. He can smell her, feel her, hear her.

'Allison?' He knows she can hear him. 'Allison?'

He can hear someone wailing. There is pain in the voice. He shudders, doesn't want to think it was her. It can't be. She'd told him it doesn't hurt.

A scream. High-pitched, loud, close. Utter pain. Her pain. His pain. Pure agony.

Silence.

His hand rests on the wood of his desk, between essays and notes that he should be working on. The clock by his bed reads Friday: 17:10.


End file.
